


Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

by antonomasia09



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Dehumanization, Episode: s07e03 The Way Forward, Head Injury, Hurt Shiro (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Protective Keith (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron) Has Kuron's Memories, Shiro (Voltron) Whump, Stabbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 02:06:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19241641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antonomasia09/pseuds/antonomasia09
Summary: AU of 7x03, in which Ezor and Zethrid take a lot more interest in Shiro.





	Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse for this one, can't even blame alyyks for anything other than enabling. I _can_ thank her for beta reading, though!

In spite of the psychic backlash from his Lion, Keith, in the pilot’s seat, fared a little better than his passengers when the reverse tractor beam punched them out of the sky. Enough that he was semi-conscious by the time the pirates pulled him out of his chair — _how did they get in?_ — and dropped him to the deck. His head hurt, everything hurt, but he fought anyway. He got in a few good kicks before one of the other pirates leveled their gun at Krolia’s unconscious form, and Keith stilled.

He let them snap glowing red cuffs around his wrists. They sent a slight tingle up his arms when he pulled at them, not enough to really hurt, just unpleasant. The pirates did the same to Krolia, and then one of them found Shiro, lying crumpled behind some crates.

“Aw look,” one said. “We don’t even need to cuff this one. What could he do with one arm?”

Quite a lot, actually, and Keith allowed himself a brief moment of hope that they would leave Shiro unbound, until it was dashed by another pirate, who answered, “We’re not taking any chances.”

They fastened one end of the cuffs to Shiro’s wrist, and pulled his arm behind his back to attach the other to his belt. Then, one of them grabbed him by the leg and began dragging him out of the Lion. Keith was worried; Shiro showed no signs of waking up. He must have hit his head badly during the crash.

Another pirate gave Krolia the same treatment, and Keith bit his lip to stifle the snarl that wanted to emerge and let them drag him upright and manhandle him onto their ship.

The fact that his wolf hadn’t shown up yet was concerning. He hoped she had managed to teleport away before the crash — the idea that she might be lying somewhere inside Black, hurt, waiting for him to come help her, was too terrible to contemplate.

The pirates dumped Keith in a holding cell along with the rest of the team, most of whom were groaning as they regained consciousness. Coran was conspicuously absent, and Keith hoped he was all right as well.

“Wha’s goin’ on?” Pidge slurred, sitting up enough that she was slumped more on Hunk than on the floor.

“Pirates,” Keith answered. “They’ve got us and they’ve got our Lions. Not sure yet what they’re planning to do with us.”

“Oh great,” Lance groaned.

Keith made his way over to the corner where Shiro had been dropped and was lying still, and ran his hands over his friend, checking for broken bones. Nothing felt obviously wrong, but there was a cut on Shiro’s forehead dyeing his white hair pink. Keith pulled Shiro’s head onto his lap and occupied himself with trying to wipe off some of the blood.

He didn’t know what to say to the others to make them feel better. That was what Shiro was good at; Keith was only good at fighting. He wished Shiro would wake up.

Keith wasn’t sure how much time passed before the door opened — enough for Lance to hurt his leg trying to find a secret passage, and for Hunk and Romelle to start bickering about something food-related. Everyone fell silent, though, as footsteps echoed in the hallway and then the door swung open to reveal two of Lotor’s generals.

They looked different than the last time he saw them. One of Zethrid’s eyes was a blank orb; one of Ezor’s legs had been replaced by a prosthetic. Their cruel grins were just as he remembered, though.

“Time for us to have a little talk,” Zethrid said, and Ezor bounced up and down with glee.

Keith should say something. Assert his defiance, or taunt them. But his mind was blank of everything but the heavy weight of Shiro’s head on his thighs, and Shiro’s blood going tacky on his fingertips.

Lance glanced at Keith, met his gaze for the briefest moment, then said, “Sure, let’s talk. I love to talk! I bet you two would enjoy the story of when my family and I went to watch a space shuttle launch. I was about eight years old at the time, and my older sister Veronica wanted to _urk_.” Lance’s words abruptly cut off as Ezor grabbed him by the throat and lifted him in the air effortlessly. His feet dangled and kicked, and his face was rapidly turning red.

The other paladins yelled at Ezor to stop, to put him down, but she gave no sign that she was listening.

“Actually, we had a different topic in mind,” she said, her tone still light and conversational. “We want to know what happened to Lotor.”

“He’s dead,” Keith shouted. “We left him in the Quintessence field.”

That got the attention of both of the generals on him. And, to his horror, on Shiro as well.

Ezor released Lance, letting him fall to the ground and curl up, coughing. She looked over at Zethrid.

“What’s that doing here?” Zethrid said.

“I thought it was supposed to kill the one with the flippity hair. Guess it failed.”

“Doesn’t explain what it’s doing here.”

“Are they talking about Shiro?” Hunk asked, horrified.

“It should be able to give us the answers we need,” Ezor said, ignoring Hunk. “Or at least some entertainment. Take it.”

Zethrid strode forward, shoving aside Allura and Krolia, both of whom attempted to plant themselves in front of Keith and Shiro. Keith pulled Shiro closer, wishing there were more handholds on the armor that he could grab, but Zethrid wrenched him out of Keith’s arms with a single tug, and swung him over her shoulder. Shiro dangled limp as she and Ezor exited the cell with an anticipatory smile.

***

Shiro woke to hands patting his face, and a voice he couldn’t quite place singing, “Wakey wakey!”

He groaned, and tried to swat the hands with his right arm, but nothing happened. It took him a minute to remember why. His head hurt, and he wanted to go back to sleep.

“Go ‘way,” he muttered, and swatted with his left arm instead, except he wasn’t able to do that either. Shiro frowned. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with that one. He tried again, and this time he realized that it was stuck on something. No, not stuck. Tied. Tied down.

His eyes flew open. Shiro was sprawled on the floor, a wall at his back, and his hand was cuffed behind him. The room he was in was dingy and empty of furniture, and wasn’t anywhere on the Black Lion.

He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten here. The last thing Shiro remembered was hurtling through a cavern at top speed, trying to stay ahead of the pirate fleet. It still felt strange to be in Black when Keith was flying her, like he could anticipate her movements nine times out of ten, but the tenth time was a dousing of cold water.

Most of his field of vision was occupied by the blurry figure in front of him. He blinked a few times, and the figure moved backwards and finally came into focus. One of Lotor’s generals, the colorful overly-cheerful one. She was giggling a little. The big one was behind her, arms crossed.

Shiro drew his knees in, unable to get enough leverage to sit up, and watched them warily. He was still wearing his armor but he had no weapons, and given the way his head throbbed, he probably had a concussion.

“Where am I?” he said, “And where are the others?”

“No, no, that’s not how this works,” said the cheerful one. “We ask the questions, and you give us answers. Or screams of pain. Those are okay too.”

So that’s how it was going to be. Shiro set his jaw. He wouldn’t let them see his fear, and he wouldn’t let them hear him scream.

“We’ll start simple,” the cheerful one continued. “What’s your designation?”

His what? Did they want his prisoner identification number from his time with the Galra? He wasn’t going to give it to them, to let them degrade him in that way.

“My name is Shiro,” he said.

The blow from the big one wasn’t unexpected, but trapped as he was he had no way to shield himself from it. Thankfully she went for the ribs and not his head, but he knew it was only a matter of time. He curled up tighter and drew in a shaky painful breath.

“Let’s try that again,” the cheerful one said. “Operation Kuron, designation…?”

 _Y0XT39_ , a voice in the back of his head whispered.

Shiro shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m not a clone. I’m Shiro.”

“That’s what they all say,” she told him. “But we saw you deliver Lotor to Haggar.”

“Are you sure it’s the same one, Ezor?” the big one muttered. “Could have sworn its hair was darker.”

“Hm, you could be right.” Ezor peered closely at him, lifting his chin with the tentacle on her head in order to get a better look at his scar. Shiro pulled away and glared at her.

“We found it with the other paladins, though,” she said. Shiro’s heart sank. The others must be captured too, then. If he was going to get out of this, he was going to have to do it on his own.

“Where did you all disappear to?” Ezor asked.

“What do you mean?” Shiro said.

“Where have you been for the past three decaphoebs?”

“Fighting the Galra, mostly. You should know; you and Lotor were always one step ahead of us.”

That got him another punch to the ribs, but this time, Shiro wasn’t entirely sure why. He coughed harshly, once he could pull in air again, and tried not to think about how many more blows he could take before they snapped.

“There was an explosion,” Ezor prompted, “And Voltron vanished, only to show up out of nowhere three decaphoebs later. So. Where did you go?”

Shiro just looked up at her in confusion. Keith had told him what happened during the fight with Lotor, and how they’d needed to sacrifice the castle to repair the rips in the fabric of spacetime, but he hadn’t said anything about disappearing for years. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

The big one growled in frustration. “It’s obviously defective,” she said. “Let’s just either have some fun or get rid of it.”

Ezor sighed. “Fine,” she said. She pulled out a knife and began twirling it around, looking Shiro up and down. “I wonder if there’s any metal in the other arm,” she mused.

“No, wait, I’m…” A person? That had never stopped the Galra before. A paladin? He wasn’t even sure if he was anymore. He hadn’t flown the Black Lion since Allura retrieved his spirit from the astral plane. Most of the paladins thought he was still taking it easy, recovering, but Allura had taken him aside and explained that his quintessence felt different now. If he tried to fly, it was even odds that he would get sucked right back in.

Shiro clamped his mouth shut tight. Begging wouldn’t help. Besides, whatever they were going to do to him, he’d had worse. He could get through this.

Ezor hauled him upright and then reached behind him and pressed a chip to Shiro’s handcuff, which clicked open and let his arm fall to his side. His shoulder was sore from being held in an awkward position for so long, but he took a swing at her anyway. She caught his fist easily, and wagged a finger at him.

“Nuh uh, none of that, now,” she said.

Ezor dragged his arm up and fastened it to a ring on the wall above his head. In spite of his best efforts to stay calm, his breath was coming faster now, and he couldn’t help tugging at it, trying to get away.

She started fiddling with Shiro’s armor fastenings, trying to figure out how to remove his left gauntlet, while the big one smirked. His legs were still free, so he aimed a kick at her. She dodged without even looking away from her work, and the big one promptly grabbed his legs and held them down.

After a few moments, she found the release catch, and Shiro’s gauntlet and vambrace fell away, leaving his forearm unprotected.

He still didn’t want to show fear, but god, what if she took this arm too? This was a scene straight out of his nightmares, which had only gotten worse since his fight with Keith. He had to get away.

Just as she set the tip of her blade at his elbow, an alarm blared out. She startled, and he couldn’t help the soft noise he made as the knife sank in, before she yanked it back out and whirled around to follow the big one out the door, leaving Shiro alone in the room.

He gave an experimental pull on the cuff, and was only barely able to muffle his scream. Oh god. Not trying that again. But there was a worrying amount of blood puddling on the floor beneath him. And, equally concerning, he didn’t seem to be able to move his hand; Ezor must have severed nerves when she sliced into his elbow.

Shiro was starting to panic, could feel his already harsh breaths getting faster and threatening to spiral him out of control. He made a deliberate effort to calm himself down. Alarms were a good thing. They meant that someone was attacking the pirates. Best case scenario, it was the other paladins, who had gotten free and would be here any minute to release him. Worst case, it was another pirate crew that would take over and then continue where Ezor left off. No, that wasn’t helping.

There were pounding footsteps in the hall outside. It was the Galra sentries coming to drag him to the arena, it had to be — but he was hurt, he couldn’t fight. Shiro made a low noise, and the lights flickered purple as he blinked.

There were voices. A rhythmic chanting of “ _Cham-pi-on_ ” that made him shudder, but louder than that, his real name, being shouted by a voice he recognized.

“Keith!” he called, and the footsteps stopped.

“Shiro?” Keith replied, and then a blade forced its way through the door as Keith levered it open with a grunt. “I found him,” he announced to his wrist comm as he rushed over to Shiro, checking him over.

Keith honed in on Shiro’s wound instantly. “Hang on,” he said, and broke the ring the cuffs were attached to with a single swing of his sword. With nothing to support it, Shiro’s arm dropped. He immediately tried to cradle it to his stomach, but Keith shook his head. “Let me see,” he said.

Shiro held his arm out reluctantly. Keith removed his own gauntlet and ripped the fabric of his undersuit to make a bandage. It soaked through quickly.

“Shit,” Keith said. “We jettisoned the Lions. Figured we’d do a space jump to them, but your armor won’t fit back on with this bandage underneath, and I’m not sure you’re going to get very far without passing out anyway. Maybe we could…”

Keith was still talking, and he sounded worried, but Shiro was finding it hard to understand him. His whole arm was numb now, which was a nice change from the pain he was in a few minutes ago. Keith was stroking his hair too, and it felt good. He wanted to touch Keith’s, but neither of his arms was working now. Instead, he smiled up at Keith. “Your hair looks soft,” he said.

Keith stopped stroking and frowned at Shiro. Shiro wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong. He tried to apologize, but Keith just stood up and then wrenched Shiro to his feet. Shiro’s vision darkened at the edges, and he was having trouble with his balance and his legs. Keith slipped under the metal remains of Shiro’s right arm and held him tight.

“This is going to hurt,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Keith took a step forward, and then another, and the pain came roaring back as Keith’s movements jostled his arm. Shiro clenched his jaw to keep from screaming; Keith didn’t need to know how bad it was.

He let Keith mostly-drag him out the door and down the hallway. It seemed like Keith had a destination in mind, but the fuzziness was returning, and all Shiro could really focus on was trying not to topple over and take Keith with him.

Finally, Keith stopped outside of a wide doorway, and guided Shiro down in a controlled slide to the floor. “Wait here,” he said. Shiro leaned his head against the wall, and drifted. He didn’t like being left behind while Keith put himself in danger; whatever Keith was doing right now, it should have been Shiro.

Shiro blinked, and then Keith was in front of him again. “Shiro?” he said quietly, and Shiro managed to hum in response.

This time, Keith pulled Shiro over his shoulder in a firefighter’s carry. His bony shoulder dug into Shiro’s hip, and Shiro tried to block out everything but that sensation as they entered a hangar.

There were bodies on the floor. Shiro couldn’t tell if they were dead or just unconscious, and right now he wasn’t sure if he cared. He didn’t see Lotor’s generals among them.

Keith slapped a hand against a control panel and Shiro could hear the ramp extending down from a nearby Galra fighter.

Inside, it was small and cramped, and the only seat was meant for the pilot. Keith set Shiro down next to it, and Shiro felt the vibrations course through him in waves as Keith flicked buttons and switches and the craft hummed to life. He rested his head against Keith’s knee, which jerked a little but then held steady. The last thing he heard before he let himself give in to the darkness was Keith’s voice, announcing, “We’re inbound on a Galra fighter. Don’t shoot us.”

***

Shiro woke up on his back in a sealed transparent enclosure. For the briefest moment, before he could force his eyes to focus, everything had a syrupy purple tint, and his breath came fast as his limbs failed to respond. But then the seal retracted, and the figure that leaned into view and reached in to help Shiro sit up was the good kind of familiar. Even after Shiro was upright, Keith didn’t let go, so Shiro wrapped his own arm around him and buried his face in Keith’s shoulder. He couldn’t bring himself to look around yet, just in case there were other pods just like this one filled with clones just like him.

Based on the closeness of the air and the other people crowding around to touch him now, though, Shiro didn’t think there was enough room for any more pods. He opened his eyes reluctantly, and, to his relief, found only faces that were not his own.

Keith let go of Shiro, only so that he could be pulled into a hug by Hunk, and then by Pidge and Lance. Allura touched him gently on the shoulder, Romelle kissed his cheek, and Krolia nodded to him, and Shiro jumped a little when the wolf appeared out of nowhere to lick his face thoroughly before disappearing again.

“You got lucky, Number One,” Coran said with a smile. “A few more minutes, and we would have lost you.”

“Thank you,” Shiro said. He looked down at his left arm, and made a fist, then rolled his wrist around. There was a slight residual soreness in his elbow, and he would likely need to recover some strength, but it seemed the healing pod had performed yet another miracle.

“I’m sorry,” Keith said. For what? Shiro frowned at him. “I let Lotor’s generals take you, and you almost died, and we blew up their ship but I’m pretty sure they made it off.”

Shiro shook his head. “You _saved_ me,” he said. “Like you always do.”

“Not always,” Keith said darkly, and crossed his arms.

“Always,” Shiro repeated, firm. “I’m here and I’m safe, and it’s because of you.”

“Hey, I want a little credit,” Lance called. “I tried to get our cell door open.”

“Yeah, but Pidge was the one that actually managed to do it,” Hunk said.

“Ooh, the betrayal burns,” Lance said, and then he and Hunk were off bickering good-naturedly, with frequent interjections from the other paladins.

Shiro looked up at Keith. His hair still looked soft, and it felt soft too when Shiro reached up to brush a strand of it out of Keith’s face.

“As many times as it takes,” he said. “I wish it didn’t take this many.”

Keith looked startled by the laugh that burst its way out of him. “Me too. You have the worst luck of anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Do you regret making that promise yet?”

“Never,” Keith said. “Never. I need you here, Shiro.”

“You’ve got me,” Shiro said. “Always.”


End file.
